Picture wall

Well, we all them, I think. A picture wall full of pictures of our family. The problem I always have is, I just get it the way I want it and I have to add a new picture and it messes up the design you have on the wall. Or, this years pictures of your kids are vertical and next year you want the horizontal ones. Has this happened to you?
This is how I solved the problem. I made a long shelf from 1x4 pine. I think it is about 6ft long.
I used 2 1x4x6 pine boards, 5 wooden dowels, 7 ft of small decorative trim board and stain. As you can see I screwed the boards together in a "L" shape, added the trim to the top all along the edge to create a lip so your pictures won't fall off. I glued and used finish nails for this. Then drilled the holes for the dowels. There are five in my family so I did 5 dowels, glued those in with wood glue.

The shape of the shelf is just for character and I also routed the edges but you wouldn't have to do that either.
The frames I made but you could just buy them. I just wanted to make sure I could get into them easily so I could change the pictures often. These are just 4x6 snapshot size. My kids like to put the latest trip or adventure we have been on.
I just use some foam core cut to size for the back to hold the picture in and there is no glass. This makes it easy for anyone to change the picture with ease.

Don't mind the messy back!
This is so nice because this year I wanted to put more pictures of the kids up so I put more on the shelf and just overlapped the frames.

I love this look and if I need to add more or turn them to be horizontal I can!
You could do two shorter shelves and hang them staggered if you don't have room for one long one also.